Sylvie whispered in need, arching up towards him, almost sobbing in relief as his mouth finally closed over her nipple, caressing it gently, his tongue laving it and then flicking erotically against it before he started to suck on it with a rhythmic urgency that echoed the pulsing heat of his arousal.
Once, long ago, she had dreamt of Ran wanting her like this, needing her like this, all aching, fierce, demanding male passion. Tiny shock waves of desire were flooding sensuously through her, she wanted him so badly; eagerly she drew him closer and then froze as somewhere in the woods a fox screamed noisily to the moon.
Ran too tensed, lifting his mouth from her body as he turned his head in the direction of the noise.
Suddenly, abruptly, protected no longer by the heat of his passion nor the warmth of his body, Sylvie realised what she was doing. The gravel of the drive which previously she had not even noticed pressed sharply into her skin, and her face flushed with mortification as she realised how she must look, how she must seem to Ran, so pathetically eager for his kisses, for him, that she...
‘Don’t touch me,’ she warned him shakily as she yanked down her top and struggled to her feet. ‘I feel sorry for your...for Vicky...if all it takes to make you unfaithful to her is...’
‘You?’ Ran supplied tersely for her.
Sylvie’s flush deepened, pain filling her body as she turned away from him so that he wouldn’t see how much he was hurting her.
‘We both know that what just happened had nothing to do with... That it wasn’t me... I could have been anyone. My body could have been anyone’s. You were...’
‘So turned on by the sight of your semi-naked breasts that I couldn’t resist seeing if they felt and tasted as good as they looked,’ Ran told her softly. ‘You forget, Sylvie... I’ve seen them before, and not just seen them but—’
‘Stop it, stop it,’ Sylvie begged him, instinctively placing her hands over her ears to blot out the sound of his taunting words. That was the last thing she wanted to be reminded about now...the very last... Tears blurred her vision. Frantically she blinked them away; she wasn’t going to let Ran see her crying... No way...
Shakily she made her way towards the Discovery whilst Ran watched her broodingly. What the hell could he say to her? She had every right to be furiously angry with him. That gibe about Vicky had been uncalled for, though. Vicky wasn’t his love...he didn’t have a love... There was no relationship, no commitment in his life...unlike her.
Did she respond to Lloyd the same way she had to him, with that aching, intoxicating blend of female need and almost out-of-control hunger?
Ran closed his eyes as he heard Sylvie start the engine of her car.
He had made his fair share of mistakes in his life and had his due portion of regrets, but there was nothing he regretted more than... He swallowed and looked out into the darkness. He hadn’t needed what had happened tonight to tell him that there was unfinished business between him and Sylvie.
As he started to walk towards where he had left his car the fierce male ache in his body made him clench his teeth. Right now there was nothing, nothing, he wanted more than to finish what they had started. Nothing he wanted more and no one he could have less.
Sylvie’s body might still be responsive to him, but Sylvie herself hated him. He knew that. She had told him so often enough.
‘Wayne’s the man I love,’ she had said, throwing the words at him like weapons, and he, too furious, too jealous to respond, had simply walked away without explaining to her that she was a wealthy man’s daughter and he might have nothing, but at least, unlike her precious Wayne, he genuinely cared about her, hadn’t just been using her!
He had spent the next two days searching Oxford from top to bottom for her, but by then it was too late—she had disappeared. The next time he had seen her she had been with the band of New Age travellers who had invaded Alex’s land, quite plainly enjoying flaunting her relationship with its leader in front of him.
‘What’s wrong?’ she had taunted him. ‘You didn’t want me...you told me so and you were right, Ran, you’re not the one for me...not very much of a man at all compared with Wayne,’ she had purred with a sensuously knowing look that had made him feel as if someone was ripping out his guts.
‘She and Wayne seem to be lovers,’ Alex had confided to him unhappily, and now another man had taken over that role in her life, that place in her bed, and he had no right...
Helplessly he stared at the stars. Why the hell had he done it, given in to the temptation to resurrect for himself all the old ghosts, all the old pain? Hadn’t he already spent enough nights lying alone in his bed, aching for her, wanting her?